The 4000 Islands and an adventure of its own kind

The time on the 4000 Islands was really relaxed. We booked into a guesthouse having bamboo bungalows directly at the shore with a view over the Mekong River on the West side of the Don Det guaranteeing awesome sunsets the next three nights. On our arrival day we booked a tour to watch some of the last existing sweet water dolphins and a huge waterfall were the Mekong River drops into the deep. In fact we got to see some dolphins but unfortunately very far away. The scenery has been just impressive and the weather was really hot. On our second island day we rented bikes and rode them over the island and its neighboring one which are connected by an old train bridge introduced by the French. We followed the old train route and got eventually to places where the Laos people used the old steel tracks as bridges. We carried our bikes over those bridges having nothing underneath them but empty space - scary I can tell you, but we survived :-) We also visited another waterfall which was nice but half as impressive as the other one. With our last cash money, no ATMs were available on the islands, we booked our trip to Siam Reap in Cambodia because there was no way getting there with public transport. This is the time when "The adventure of its own kind" started.

The trip started at 8 a.m. in the morning and the first part went very well. We were taken to the Laos-Cambodian border, got our Visa for Cambodia without becoming victims of corruption (just some overcharging of 6 US dollars) and continued our journey to Stung Treng with a nice minivan with airconditioning as promised. In Stung Treng our guide took us on a ferry to cross once again the Mekong River and we all had lunch in a nice little restaurant we were taken to. Jep, I know why guides do that, have been one myself with Rainbow Tours - Commision!!! Anyway, we were waiting for the next minibus taking us to our overnight place, and here the horror began: the minivan was completely rusty (so much that it had holes in the floor, giving us a nice panorama of the street, it had two seats more than there was space for and some local people put on the roof, the windshield was cracked (so the drive had to push his hand against it every time a car came on the other side of the road), all cables in the front were visible, no rear lights and only one working in the front (which became an issue when it got dark and the drive rode the bus over those bumpy dirt roads), and last but not least a driver who must have been a Japanese Kamikazee in his first life. The next 12 hours we were on that car and for those who do not know: Cambodia has only a few European styled smooth roads, all others are dirt roads...We arrived at 9p.m. at our overnight place, all dusty from the dirt of the road being in the car, in our backpacks, in our nose and lungs, and on our clothes. One good thing was that the hostel he took us to was mentionned in the Lonely Planet. We spent the night and got up early in the morning to take a public bus for the rest of the route to Siam Reap. Once we opened our eyes we realized that it was not a nightmare but real and were happy to be alive :-)